I'm Shelby:) I'm 14. I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at 3 months, and it's all below for info :)
Although my CF can get pretty bad- I should be dead 4 times over- I don't let it stop me from having fun and being a teenager. I guess I'm sort of the rebel stereotype girl, but my mind goes deeper than you'd think, and I'm a little more mature when it comes to logic. I like to party and I LOVE being with my friends 24/7. I'm typically nice, but I have a bitch side to me. I don't like being singled out for my disease, and I get super pissed when people do. Message me:)

When I was born, my mom says all I did was eat, cry and puke. At 3 months, after my mom screamed at a few doctors that there was something wrong with me and they had to figure out what it was, I was diagnosed as a textbook case of Cystic Fibrosis.

I've spent so much time in the hospital, it's almost like my second home. There are some pediatric nurses there that have known me pretty well since birth. My whole life, I was in and out of the hospital, 2 or sometimes 5 times a year. It made my elementary years very difficult. I have since been diagnosed with several other things that are caused by Cystic Fibrosis...

You can see the list of diagnosis' to see what. I've had to go through many bronchs, where they put a camera tube into my lungs to look and see what's there, and take samples, several surgeries to put in "permanent" ear tubes, and about 6 polypectomies to remove polups (overgrown tissue) in my sinuses. I've also had my gall bladder removed when I think I was 11, and I had a hernia repair done on October 9, 2011.

During that repair, they found that all my organs had grown together and had to move them apart from each other, my appendix was messed up, and they had to fix the hernia and reinforce my entire diaphragm. I was supposed to be in the hospital for 5 days, but, after my pulmonologist realized I was dropping extreme weight and running a low fever, he kept me in the hospital for another week, curious. After that week, I realized my stomach wound had become severely infected and was oozing pus. I was brought into the O.R. the next day to reopen the wound and clean it all out. They gave me a wound VAC (a machine with a tube that sucks pus out of a wound) for 2 weeks and I remained in the hospital for a month with that, and dressing changes every other day. It was one of the worst things I've ever had to go through.

Right now, I still have general tape-and-gauze dressing that I change every few days, waiting for it to heal from the inside out... It sucks. Another symptom from the surgery, an unexpected and unexplained ones- is that, at least once a day (it has gone slightly better) I puke. I don't quite vomit digested food, but I more spit up what looks like it's the last few bites of food that hasn't yet reached my stomach... I'm currently trying to figure out why.

I also am awaiting a scoliosis repair- one I'm getting whenever they decide it's bad enough- and I am glucose intolerant. When I eat, my blood sugar skyrockets quickly, then falls super fast way low. I'm waiting to become insulin dependent and diagnosed diabetic- which will happen in probably less than a year.

My health has really beat on my emotions for the past (almost 15) years. I've never had a normal childhood, as I grew up in the hospital mostly. My mom has been there through EVERYTHING, and waits on me hand and foot when I need something, or I'm sick. She's an amazing mom to all of us, her four kids. My dad hasn't been there much, much I know he loves me. In the past few years, I've noticed severe issues with my emotions. I feel depressed 90% of the time, and I've cut, too, for no apparent reason. I haven't told any professionals yet, mainly because I don't want to go to North Star.

The past 8 months, though, have been the hardest of my life- just above when I moved cities and went to a new, hateful school. First, after going 3 years without going in the hospital, I got sick and went in for 2 weeks. Then my best friend in the world moved to Texas, and I got really depressed. After that, I went back in the hospital (2 months later), and got out and became closer with my other friend. We became really close, and we got caught smoking pot at school, then became less close after her dad deemed me unlikeable. I grew even closer with my best friend ever, though, and we were always together. Her dad was abusive and insane, and she left and went to her grandma's one night to get away. After filing a police report, cops took her to North Star (teenager's behavioral health clinical) as a runaway and is there for the next year. Right after that, I got the hernia repair/appendix removal/redo of a fundoplication. I was in the hospital for a month because it got infected, and I haven't been able to eat without puking since. On December 29th, my friend Jena Dolstad died (you can google her), and now I'm in a pretty big depression dip.

After everything I've gone through, I still try to stay strong. A celebrity who really inspires me is Alice Martineau. A song that really touches me is "Angels In Waiting" by Tammy Cochran- it's about her brothers that died of CF. I have dreams for my life, and my goal is to get there without letting CF or anything get in my way.